Delaware Water Gap, NJ. October, 1973

When I was a teacher at a Catholic boys high school in New Jersey during the early 1970s, I made an unlikely friend in the head of the Science Department, Tom, shown here, center, with refreshment and Fu Manchu ’stache (which, I now notice, seated right, I had adopted, as well). Tom had grown up in Brooklyn, was now living near the school, and many afternoons we’d wind up at a bar in nearby Westfield called The Jolly Trolley, where we’d laugh at the expense of others and Tom would regrettably act snotty to one particular waitress for reasons I still can’t figure out. Early one school-free July, he called to say that he was driving to Kalamazoo for a few weeks to work on a funded university project that provided an apartment, and did I want to come? Sure, I had the summer off. I packed, waited for him to pick me up, he never showed. Had I misunderstood? He brushed if off later with a nonchalant, “Oh, I changed my mind.” Um, OK, we were younger then. But not as young as these students whom we took on a Saturday field-trip hike to the Delaware Water Gap at the Garden State’s westernmost border. I love the perspective down to the river in the background, the clothing and haircuts from so many years ago, the easy camaraderie of that bygone time. I wonder who these nice kids grew up to be, what became of Tom.